


We don't always get what we need

by theteacuptempest



Category: Alice (TV 2009)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Canon, Reference to past Alice/Jack, Relationship Problems, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8832001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theteacuptempest/pseuds/theteacuptempest
Summary: Hatter has been living in Alice's world for months and she's happy, honestly. Except that their relationship wasn't all she envisioned it to be. And she's beginning to question just how much Hatter may actually need her around. And Jack isn't quite putting her fears to rest. Otherwise, though, yes. She's very content.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pouncer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pouncer/gifts).



> Pouncer, I was very excited to see I'd been matched on this fandom! I'm a long time fan of this mini-series and I was excited to write about Alice's story after the events of the series. I hope that this fic is exactly what you wanted for Yuletide, and that you have a wonderful holiday season!

“So this is pizza. It’s nice.” Hatter asked, sitting in the booth across from her. The low lighting of the restaurant washed out his skin. The black jacket and black hat didn’t help. He looked different here, less wild, less imaginary and more like he could be anyone off the street. He was a picture of someone that belonged.

“If you like this just wait until I take you out for Thai,” she said and gave a pleasant little laugh, a fake little laugh. Her stomach hurt and something ugly tugged in her chest.

Alice tried not to let it bother her.

-

She thought, once she’d calmed down from the great high of seeing Hatter again, that they would have a long road ahead of them. Alice had taken such a long time to so much as believe in his world. It stood to reason it would take just as long for him to get comfortable in her own. She thought he’d need weeks, or maybe months, to settle in. Once he’d had to leave that night –kissing him in front of her mother was one thing, but inviting him to stay was a step too far- Alice booted up her computer and made lists of everything he’d need. He assured her he had a place to stay, but she looked for apartments she could help afford until they found him a job. She tried to find information on getting Hatter proper documentation. She wrote out every difference she could remember between their worlds, making note of cultural references she’d need to teach him. She stayed up the entire night planning.

When she meet Hatter the next day, she found he figured it all on his own. Papers from dealings with Jack, a place secured by some shady favor owed, a job waiting for him at the start of the next week. He took the time she was in the hospital to get things well in order and with far more efficiency than Alice thought possible. He was even the one to suggest lunch at a café near his new apartment he’d found, chiding their lack of properly brewed tea but gushing about their pastries.

When he wasn’t looking, she stuffed her lists in the nearest trash bin.

-

Jack showed up now and again. He never stayed long, an hour or so of quick conversation before someone in white was dragging him off again. Wonderland couldn’t spend days without her King, not while that world was still being pieced together.

He often came with Hatter was at work, fitting around her schedule that he still seemed to remember to talk to her and her alone. Alice may have felt bad about it, if Hatter didn’t seem so utterly uninterested in anything Jack had to say. Sometimes she wondered if the two would ever learn to get along.

Jack and Charlie, when he decided to come around, were the only people outside of Hatter she could talk to about those missing days in a fairy tale. Jack was the only one she could see about things on serious level, one that didn’t devolve into stories about days of old and communing with the universe. Alice’s trust in Jack had been shattered by Wonderland, but she knew him too well to think he’d ever take her worries as anything but solemn truth.

Maybe that was why as months passed and the gnawing in her stomach grew, she found herself confiding in Jack.

“He’s taken to this world like a duck to water. Three months and sometimes I think he knows the culture better than me.” Alice stared into her coffee cup, watching the ripples grow whenever she tapped too hard on the ceramic. She hated the drinks here. She wondered why she always agreed to this as a place to meet. Probably because Jack had liked it so much back when they dated.

“I would say that’s quite the good thing, isn’t it? Except you don’t look very pleased with that, Alice.” Jack sat in the café booth like it was a throne, regal even among stained upholstery and tired college students. It was easy to spot -now that the secrets were out in the open- that he was noble born through and through. Everything about him screamed a certain kind of class.

“I’m happy for him. Of course I am.” It would be selfish to be anything but.

“Happy, and yet…” Jack trailed, leading.

Alice stared out the window, watching people wander down the street, and pushed her mug away. She didn’t really have the stomach for anything at the moment, not with the pit forming low in her gut. “I relied so much on him when I was in Wonderland.”

She didn’t continue. Jack caught on anyway.

“Ah.” He watched her and let her have the rest of the hour in silence.

-

She told Hatter about every meeting with Jack. Of course she did, it would have felt like she was hiding from him if she hadn’t. Alice hated the little shocks of jealously and hurt that seeing Duchess had sent through her spine. She hated that hearing Hatter mention Carlotta had made her a little sick, even if she’d still been looking for Jack at the time. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, do anything to hurt Hatter like that.

It never seemed to matter, he didn’t seem to care.

“I was with Jack today. He wants to meet next week, around the same time if you’d like to-“

“No thanks.” Hatter interrupted from over his tea. “Lots to do that day, you know. Work, shopping for a new hat. Didn’t get to quite bring all my collection along.”

She let it drop. She knew that they had never been friends and didn’t suspect even the ordeal of taking down the Queen would change that. Still, she wished.

“You go along, have fun with ol’ Jack hmm?”

She wasn’t sure when she became the kind of person that would welcome a little jealously.

-

Hatter hadn’t lied when he told her mother he worked in construction. It wasn’t at all the kind of job she imagined him at. Alice had seen his strength of course, the right arm he’d already told her didn’t have power here. But he never come across as the type of hard labor, not when he had the choice.

“It’s work,” Hatter said with a shrug. Her concerns fell over him and he shook them off like rain drops. “I’ve heard you can’t be too choosy in your world and there’s nothing here like what I did back there. I would know, I’ve checked.”

“There’s plenty of shops here Hatter.” They were out in public, walking around the city streets on errands. There’s part of her that couldn’t stop calling him that, no matter who could over hear. She’d lied to her mother about it, said it was an old nickname. “You were a great salesman, weren’t you? You could do that again. Or something else that lets you talk to people.”

He was wily enough, slick enough like oil to make away with any job requiring a little convincing of costumers. He may have been difficult with her, but she’d seen him with other people. He could lie a thought into someone’s head and make them think it was their own idea. He could convince people of near anything; flatter with the best of them. He could do better than construction.

But Hatter’s face shuttered off, eyes dark. “I was once, I suspect. But I don’t want to be anymore.”

When he turned to her, he looked intense. Firm. A little pleading. It could have taken her breath in the best of ways if she didn’t suddenly feel wrong footed.

“I don’t want to make my life here lying my way through. I think building things will be a nice change of pace, yeah? It’s a little more honest, don’t you think?”

“You’ve already lied to my mother,” she said and she knew it was the wrong thing the moment it was out of her mouth.

Hatter’s expression froze, then turned plastic. “Yeah,” he said, voice barely a whisper against the noise of the city. He turned and walked on, shoulders carrying more tension than before.

They barely said two words the rest of the night.

-

“Building things?” Jack didn’t seem surprised, but Alice couldn’t be sure if that was genuine or just his trained composure slipping through. Or if he’d already kept tabs on all of them and he’d had his moment of surprise weeks ago. “You find this peculiar?”

“Well, yes.” She didn’t like his tone and tried to keep her own voice even. She tore at the sandwich on her plate, spraying her part of the table with crumbs. Alice hated tuna salad, but she’d ordered it because she knew Jack liked it and he’d been late. He’d only eaten half, citing some state lunch he’d just come from, but he’d smiled to see she’d remembered. It was something at least, even if she still ended up with the rest on her plate.

“Why?”

“Why? Does it really seem liked the kind of job he’d like?” She sighed. “There’s better ones, easier ones for him.”

“Ones you could find?” Jack hit the point quickly. He learned more about her in those few months together than she ever did about him.

She frowned, peeling at the sandwich crusts. He made it sound like she expected to do everything for Hatter and that wasn’t it. Not quite. “I think he’d be happier at something else. That’s all.”

Jack took a sip from his drink, adjusted his tie and gave her the kind of pitying smile that made her spine stiffen. “You don’t think he’s happy now?”

“Of course he is,” she said quickly. Alice looked down at the mess on her plate, inspected the pieces of bread stuck beneath her nails. Her stomach hurt. It wasn’t even a lie but it still felt bitter on her tongue.

-

Every night Hatter came back with aches in his shoulders and calluses growing on his palms. He smiled at Carol over dinner, talked about the robbery he heard about from the news and how he wanted to take Alice to some old movie they were showing in the park. They didn’t have movies in Wonderland and Hatter was half-obsessed with watching mysteries from before even her mother’s time.

Most nights he went back to his place, kissed her in the hallway while they pretended her mother couldn’t see from the next room. He smoothed out his hair that he wore so much neater than before and put back on the simple black hat he’d taken to wearing in this world. Hatter said goodnight, polite as any gentleman could be asked to act. He went home and she went to bed.

Some nights they went out for dinner, movies, a walk around the city, and they went back to his place. They talked about small things and Alice always was the one drag him to bed. Hatter would smile wide, wait until she asked to touch her with those callused hands, and she kissed him until her urge to say something that mattered died at his lips.

Those nights she took far too long to fall asleep, staring at shadowed ceilings and lost in the feeling still ripping at her gut.

-

“They didn’t have this in Wonderland, did they?” She asked as they walked through displays for camcorders and phone accessories. The technology seemed the hardest for hatter to grasp, even if he wouldn’t admit to it. Still, she could see it in his face when she asked him to take a call on her cell and the confusion when she had to explain about texts.

  
“No, never had the need. Other ways to get a message out, you know.” Hatter eyed the cell phone case with a little frown. His boss had asked him about getting one and Alice had been all too happy to take him out for it.

She probably shouldn’t be so pleased about him asking her along; there was probably something wrong with wanting someone she loved to need help even on such a small scale.

“There’s a lot to choose from. I took a look at some things last night.” Alice walked toward the end of the case, smiling. She searched for a few moments, tapped her nail on the glass. “I think this would work…”

She trailed off, turning to find Hatter had already flagged down a worker and was having something pulled from the case.

“I just needed something simple,” he said later, smiling as he plugged her number in as they sat in his living room.

She didn’t smile back. “I thought you wanted my help.”

He shrugged, brows knitted in confusion. “You don’t like it?”

She stood, pressed her palm to her stomach. “I’m not feeling well.”

Alice left, spending a night staring at her own ceiling.

-

“You could come back,” Jack said, slow and sure. They were again at his meeting place, again with the same stained booths and bustle of sleepy twenty-somethings around them. Jack still looked prestigious, even on such a rainy day.

“Back?” Alice asked, playing dumb and glancing out at the rivers of water on the window pane.

“To Wonderland,” said Jack, confirming what she already knew. “You could return to us.”

“I’m not part of that world, Jack. Look at everything I did to get back here. This is my home.”

“It was Alice. It is. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a home in Wonderland as well.”

“Jack,” she demurred.

“Even if you just decided to stay a few years, which wouldn’t even be a month in your time, we’d welcome you. I think it may do you just as much good as it would be a benefit Wonderland.” Jack sounded earnest, enough so that Alice found herself hesitating.

The hesitation was enough. It was a little wake up call; a tipping point. She knew where Jack was trying to lead and she knew she wouldn’t follow.

“And how exactly would I be a benefit there? A figure head? I couldn’t be anything else, I don’t know anything about your politics and barely anything about the people.” Good excuses, as far as Alice was concerned.

“I think that’s exactly what would make you a benefit. It’s not about politics, Alice,” Jack said and smiled his politician smile. “You done us a great service, even when it wasn’t your place. It’s that we, that I, can rely on you.”

It was such a simple thing. It was exactly what she wanted to hear from exactly the person she didn’t need to hear say it.

“You know I don’t think I ever really liked this café very much.” She stood up, leaving her untouched coffee on the table. She smiled at Jack. “My home is here Jack. I won’t leave it. I was supposed to leave behind giving up without trying.”

Jack stood too. The polished politician was gone; replaced with the sad understanding of a man she’d almost loved. “I hope he knows how lucky he is.”

“Goodbye Jack.” Alice knew she’d see him again; she knew that their lives would always be linked. Undoubtedly, she’d see him again the next week for another lunch meeting where they’d pretend this conversation hadn’t happened. Still, it felt more final than anything had since she’d walked back through the mirror.

-

She usually waited on his invitation to show up at Hatter’s place, but with something new fueling her, Alice went anyway, pushing in with the key he’d given her the day after she meet him again. After a moment of looking over the tiny foyer and living room, she found him in the kitchen. He was half way through a roll of cookies, crumbs all over his shirt and milk clinging to his upper lip.

“Alice?” He wiped at his mouth and walked over to her, concerned and confused.

She didn’t give him time to ask what was wrong, shaking her head and taking a step back to deter him from coming too close. She stared at the print in the wallpaper over his shoulder, drawing in a shaky breath. “Are you happy?”

He stopped, hand still raised where he’d been ready to touch her. “What?”

“Are you happy here?” She drew another breath, quieter but more urgent. She glanced briefly to his eyes.

Hatter stayed quiet for a long, nerve wracking moment, but then smiled. “Of course I am. Alice, do I look unhappy?”

“No,” she said and tried to keep her voice from breaking. “You’ve got everything figured out. You seem amazingly content here.”

She wanted to cry. Everything she had to say felt so stupid and selfish. Even saying it only made the awful feeling in her chest grow. He shouldn’t have to deal with this from her, after everything they’d already been through. But when she started talking, Alice found she couldn’t stop.

“I had to rely on you so much back there, back in Wonderland. To get me through all-” Alice took a shuddering breath. “-All of that. And if I’d had to stay, if I’d been stuck in Wonderland you said you’d help me.”

“I would have.” Hatter took her by the shoulders, ducked down to look her in the eye. His voice was earnest, and a little alarmed. “I promised I’d make sure you were okay and I meant it.”

“I know you did,” she admitted, putting a hand on his chest. “I just thought I’d be doing the same when I realized you were here.”

He pulled back, puzzled. She closed her eyes, feeling his heart beat pick up beneath her palm.

“You don’t need my help here, Hatter. For anything.” Alice sighed. Her eyes stung. “And I think I needed that. For you to rely on me for something.”

It felt so ugly, to need someone to need her just as much. She should be ashamed of herself. But Hatter pulled her close and held her tight. When he laughed, it didn’t sound cruel.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he said into her hair. “I didn’t think you didn’t notice, but you were doing a lot of the work back in Wonderland. Maybe even most of it. You took down the whole deck of cards by yourself. I think you would have managed that even without me.”

“I wouldn’t have,” she argued.

He shook his head. “You would have. You just got a little help to make it go a little quicker. You don’t owe me for that Alice. This isn’t about being even.”

Hatter pulled back and just looked at her. He stared like he did sometimes, usually when he thought Alice wasn’t looking or when she’d said something particularly cheeky. He looked at her like she was something precious and rare, like a child awed. It was easy to buy into what he had to say, when he looked at her like she was everything.

It was nearly too much, when she was already feeling so wrong. “Isn’t it?” Alice cried. “I feel like I’m making all the wrong moves here, Hatter. I don’t know what you want! I can’t even wrap my mind around why you would rather do hard labor than something I’d suggest. I know I made you angry.”

He tried to protest. She threw up a hand to silence him. “I know I did. Don’t try to sugar coat it.” Alice stopped, put her face in her hands for a moment. “If I can’t help you, if you don’t need me than what I am doing?”

Hatter didn’t answer immediately, the room instead filled with the sounds from the street floating up through the open window. When he did talk, his voice was careful. It was like he was afraid of saying something to break her.

“Of course I need you Alice. Maybe not with all the little things. I had a lot of this stuff sorted out for me before I came, you know. Jack knew a thing or two and some of the Rabbits where still around. I didn’t want you to have to teach me everything.” Slowly, he peeled her hands away from her face, urging with a gentle sound for her to look back to him. Hatter’s expression was a little embarrassed and more than a little sheepish, but his lips twitched to smile when their eye’s met. “You’re very self-reliant Alice. You never needed anyone to do for you. I didn’t want you to have to do for me too.”

He must have noticed the way Alice frowned after that because his gaze softened. Hatter touched the side of her face, stroked his thumb over her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t need you around. Or that I don’t want you. Because I do. Both of those things.”

“You never say it.” She kept her voice quiet, pettish still under his touch.

“I’ll tell you it as many times as you need.” There was a promise in his voice and something that reminded her of every time he’d asked about trust. It was the kind of voice that made her want to believe him or follow him anywhere. “Anytime you ask. All you have to do is ask.”

“And what about needing my help? Asking for my help?”

“I will ask,” he said. “When I need it. Same as I’d expect you to do.”

“The building thing,” she started, still grasping for something. “You were angry.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, shrugging and letting her go. “A little. But I’m not now.” Hatter took a few steps back, leaning against the sink and watching her. “So maybe we still have things to talk about. That’s normal right? For people doing what we’re doing. So we talk about me not wanting to lie anymore for a living and you wanting to do more. Okay?”

She closed her eyes, shutting out that overly earnest look on his face. She still felt foolish and off balance, someone missing a step off a staircase. But hearing him say it helped and with a few deep breaths she smiled.

“Okay.”

-

“It wasn’t pizza.” Hatter came back in the living room with customary cups of tea and a frown. Apparently spice didn’t agree with him and one bite of his noodle bowl had been enough for a call to leave. Thai night had been a bust.

It had also been great, as far as Alice was concerned. They talked, been talking for the past few weeks. The awkwardness had lifted. Things had gotten easier. Nothing was perfect, not yet. But they were better.

“I could order pizza,” she said, stretched out on his couch. She kicked her shoes off somewhere in the hallway, laid out like she owned the place. She noticed how it made him smile.

Hatter set the cups on the coffee table, perched on the couch arm and pulled her feet into his lap. The foot rub didn’t even require any prompting, though his hands trailed a little too high up her thighs to count as a proper massage. “Home delivery, hmm? What will you little oysters think up next?”

He kissed just below her knee. She laughed and kicked at his side.

“Fine,” he said and his fingertips fluttered at her sensitive instep in retaliation. “Let’s do pizza.”

Alice sat up, quick as lightening and pressed her lips to the sharp angle of his jaw. “And then we could do something else.”

“I think that would be very agreeable.” His smile was a cat with the canary; his nod enthusiastic.

She laid back and watched him. She couldn’t stop the words from coming out. “You need me, right Hatter?”

But he didn’t get angry, he didn’t get hurt. He just shifted, leaned over her until she was trapped by him against the cushions. Hatter smelled of Chai and leather. There was stubble where he’d missed a shave and when he touched her, a new callus scratched at her skin. He kissed her and she could barely find her breath.

“More than that,” he said into the skin beneath her ear. It was a quiet admission, words for her alone. “I love you.”

Alice smiled and her chest felt lighter than it had in weeks.


End file.
